Vintage Video: French 75 Gun, 1914
Updated - Saturday, 6 December, 2003

The French 75mm gun was perhaps the world's best known and most respected field gun at the start of the First World War.

The French Army was justly proud of the revolutionary quick-firing guns' reputation and believed it would play a key role in deciding the fate of the war; to that end it was the main gun used by France's field artillery.

In the event however Germany rapidly matched the French in terms of effective field artillery, although the French retained an advantage in the sheer number of 75's produced before the war began.

Click here to view film footage of the 75 (Windows Media, 19 seconds, 534KB).

"Suicide Ditch" was a term used by British soldiers to refer to the front-line trench.

Original Material © Michael Duffy 2000-07, SafeSurf Rated